BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- UAB football coach Gar­rick McGee met with the media on Saturday for the first time since his name was included in specu­lation for the opening at the University of Arkansas.

But McGee shed no light on whether he has been or will be involved in dis­cussions regarding the search for a replacement for Arkansas head coach Bobby Petrino.

Instead, McGee issued the "policy and protocol that I'm going to set for myself" when his name comes up in speculation for another job.

"This is just the first time," said McGee, who served under Petrino at Ar­kansas for the past four seasons. "Hopefully we'll take care of business around here, my name is going to come up other times. I am not interested in speaking about my deal­ings with any other univer­sity."

McGee followed with his closest statement to deny­ing that he plans to seek the vacancy at Arkansas, but stopped short of sim­ply saying he will be at UAB this season.

"I really enjoy the job that I have," McGee said. "I trust the kids, I think they have bought into what I'm thinking about. My family loves the city and I'm not interested in talking (to the media) about me or my employment with any other university."

McGee's name came up immediately after Petrino was fired by Arkansas Athletics Director Jeff Long on Tuesday. It was a natural assumption that McGee would be a candidate considering the role in the program he played the last four seasons.

It is still unclear whether Long or anyone from Arkansas has approached McGee about the job. Some media outlets reported early in the week that McGee was one of the top candidates. By the end of the week, however, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and other media outlets in Arkansas reported that McGee was not a candidate.

McGee wouldn't talk about any of the reports but did admit it was good to hear that some Arkansas fans think highly enough of him to push for his return.

"It is flattering to say you are one of the guys (that) fans appreciate what you did when you worked there," McGee said. "I think that's what I try to train our kids. What's the legacy that you're going to leave when you leave UAB? What are the people going to remember? So, yeah, it's flattering and I really appreciate them and I think they think I gave my all when I was there."

The situation hasn't seemed to affect UAB's spring practice during practice sessions this week or during Saturday's scrimmage. McGee said he took steps to prepare his program for this type of situation long before his name came up in the Arkansas speculation.

"Our team talks about rumors," McGee said. "We had one of our professors who teaches a social media class come in and speak with our team a few weeks ago about how social media nowadays is dominating the world. You can read a lot of things in the media that are just blogs or just opinions of people. We train them, not with my situation, but for the rest of their life, we train them about social media."

Quarterback Jonathan Perry it hasn't been a distraction for the players.

"We've been just trying to practice and keep our minds focused on continuing to get better," Perry said. "He's here, he's our coach. I'm just happy that he's here and happy that everyone on the staff is here. We just got to continue to get better and the sky is the limit for this program."